Former White House flack says Bush played media for saps during run-up to Iraq war

If you’ve got a political junkie on your Father’s Day gift list, you might want to consider the new TELL-ALL BOOK by former Bush administration spokesman Scott McClellan.

Not the kind of guy you’d expect to turn against his erstwhile masters, McClellan nevertheless comes right out and says President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing, which led to disaster.

McClellan says Bush used “propaganda” to play the compliant media for chumps in the days leading up to the war. (That’d be your so-called liberal media, by the way.)

McClellan’s also got a thing or two to say about Karl Rove, including the fact that he was the one who pushed the photo that became an unflattering symbol of the administration’s detachment and incompetence in dealing with Hurricane Katrina.

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Speaking of Ari Fleischer….he is the man who should be writing the book on Plame and the Iraq war. Sell-out Scotty wasn’t even around to get the inside scoop to write his tell all book. All the action happened before July 2003.

Kaus: Scotty worked at the White House from the get-go of the Bush administration, not just beginning in ’03. And why do you call him a sell-out? Because he’s blowing the whistle on that gang of liars? He’s not the first to do so, y’know. Just another nail in the political coffin of the worst administration in my lifetime — and I’m pretty old.

This is funny. The 24-percenters — the die-hard Bush backers — are all so quick to dismiss McClellan’s book. These same die-hards probably were quick to dismiss the books by Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill, too. And they’ll dismiss any other book that comes along that dares to tell of this administration’s prevarications. You’re a funny bunch, you die-hards. And I’ll bet you figure history will somehow vindicate your hero. Yeah, sure it will.

Pat, I am not a die-hard, at all. I don’t dismiss what he’s apparently written and don’t think it should be diminished just because of the timing.

But you have to admit that someone who accepts the job of spokesman — in the inner circle, privvy to a lot of sensitive information and present at some very raw and unsettling moments — is making at least an unstated promise to keep private conversations private.

I don’t know if “disloyal” or “unethical” are the right words, but they are close. If he had such a fundamental disagreement with Bush, he simply should have gotten out.

Pat-my goal in life is to keep you amused.BTW-I’m not a diehard by any means but I don’t take the opinions of a press secretary too seriously especially one who didn’t voice any opposition to that which he now criticizes when he was in the White House. A principled person would have resigned

Scotty IS a sell out. Bush gave him several cushy jobs….he should take the high moral ground and resign on his own rather than get forced out…then write the book. The makings of another disgruntled employee writing a bogus book.

Pat, he was NOT an insider after the 2000 presidential campaign (Deputy Press Secretary) until 2003. Tell me what his role was? Cleaning bath room stalls?

I still say, the Iraqi’s were much better off when Saddam Hussein was in power. The woman were treated with equality and he kept the religious nut cases in check. He knew exactly what he was up against. Saddam H was our nations friend until he was no longer needed and his oil fields became coveted by the trans-national oil companies.

This was never about liberated the Iraqi people. Iraq was probably the most modern nation over there in that part of the world. The woman went to college and held significant positions in the govt. His mistake was when he started talking with other nations about his nations oil and how it would be traded.

Now Iraq is descending into civil war. The goal of the neocons of which Obama is one of them, is to remake the middle east. GWB lied when he said he wasn’t into nation building.

How long have we been involved in these Middle East wars? Used to be a time when the USA went to war we won in 4-5 years, but now 10-15 year long wars are just seen as profit centers.. You all remember what Eishenhower said about the Military Industrial Complex. They own our our govt.